How will I know you? : a novel / Jessica Treadway.

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

A People Magazine "Book of the Week."



"Jessica Treadway draws her characters into an impossible knot and then expertly teases apart...kept me up half the night." -- Ann Patchett, New York Times bestselling author of Commonwealth



Fans of Reconstructing Amelia will love this pulse-pounding novel of mystery, betrayal, and a small town's dark secrets.



On a cold December day, the body of high school senior Joy Enright is discovered in the woods at the edge of a frozen pond. Her death looks like a tragic drowning accident at first, but an autopsy reveals something sinister -- the teenager's body shows unmistakable signs of strangulation. The discovery upends an otherwise uneventful small town, as police grapple with a rare homicide case and those closest to Joy wonder how she could have been taken from them -- and by whom. Susanne, Joy's mother, tries to reconcile past betrayals with their wrenching consequences. Martin, an African-American graduate student, faces ostracism when blame is cast on him. Tom, a rescue diver and son-in-law of the town's police chief, doubts both the police's methods and his own perceptions. And Harper, Joy's best friend, tries to figure out why she disappeared from Harper's life months before she actually went missing.



In a close-knit community where everyone knows someone else's secret, it's only a matter of time before the truth is exposed. In this gripping novel, author Jessica Treadway explore the ways in which families both thrive and falter, and how seemingly small bad choices can escalate - with fatal consequences.

Reviews provided by Syndetics

Publishers Weekly Review

At the start of Treadway's predictable novel, less a mystery than a meditation on loss and betrayal, missing teen Joy Enright is found strangled to death at the edge of a frozen pond in upstate New York. The interim police chief is determined to convict Martin Willett, a black graduate student. Martin recently ended an affair with Joy's white mother, Susanne, who was his teacher and was spotted near the scene when Joy vanished. Martin maintains his innocence, though, and Susanne is desperate to believe him, so she hires the chief's son-in-law, Tom, to investigate. The book weaves back and forth in time, with Martin, Susanne, Tom, and Joy's best friend, Harper, sharing the narrative. Treadway (Lacy Eye) explores the effect of Joy's death on her family and their community, in addition to examining racism's role in small-town justice. Unfortunately, while Susanne is a fully fleshed character whose guilt and grief are palpable, everyone else is a caricature, undercutting the plot's heft and depth. Agent: Kimberly Witherspoon, Inkwell Management. (Dec.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

Kirkus Book Review

Treadways (Lacy Eye, 2015, etc.) thoughtful mystery explores the aftermath of a young girls murder and the effects her absence has on those closest to her.Joys body is found a month after she goes missing and was presumed drowned. Her parents and best friend, already in mourning, are now faced with the additional fact that she was strangled. When the interim police chief arrests one of the few black men in town because of a single witness, the consequences take their toll on everyone: the accused, his lover, the chiefs daughter and her husband, and Joys best friend. Told out of chronology and through different characters' voices, with sections titled Before, After, and, finally, During, the novel steadily composes a poignant portrait of Joy fragment by fragment, but despite being the center of the narrative, she is not the central character. The focus is more clearly on her friends and family, exploring how they are able to find redemption and peace as they come to terms with their loss. Though it can be read as a mystery, the book is more truly a set of complex character sketches revealing deep flaws and human weaknesses but also examining how people live with their most devastating mistakes. The secondary theme of societys casual racism seems timely, and Treadway does a good job gently exposing the divide that still exists in our country, especially at times of high tension. In the end, this is a novel about relationships and the conflicts between friends, parents and children, husbands and wives that we all must navigate every day. The murder is just a catalyst. Nuanced, probing, and honest. Well worth a read. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.